What’s next? Dunce caps? Tar and feathers? 

The viciousness of Democrats seeking to punish President Trump for "inciting violence" knows no bounds. The unprecedented blitzkrieg impeachment in the House was just the beginning.  

Trump’s critics want to silence his voice, bankrupt his businesses, cut off his political funding, banish his family and, for good measure, humiliate and censor the 74 million Americans who voted for him in November

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Democrats are attempting to prevent anyone who worked in the Trump White House from getting a job, students are petitioning Harvard to revoke the diplomas of "enablers" like White House spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, corporations are stripping campaign donations from congressmen who challenged the election, and on and on.  

Some have tweeted #KillTrump, on that very same social media platform that banned the president for life because he purportedly inspired violence.  

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The appetite for vengeance is insatiable, and it is the hallmark of an angry mob, not a political party. An angry mob that has been egged on by President-elect Joe Biden, who likened Cruz to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels for spreading the "big lie" about election irregularities. 

Biden, who vowed to bring the nation together. 

To be sure, Trump has not helped himself. Over the past few years, his harsh rhetoric and unseemly attacks on adversaries have worn the nation’s patience; his persistent but unproven claims of voter fraud make him look like a sore loser.

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But the furor against the defeated president has little to do with his thin skin or his role in the terrible assault on the Capitol. It has everything to do with punishing an outsider who dared to expose the duplicity and sanctimony of our powerful elites. He embarrassed them, and they want to extinguish him. 

The liberal media, Big Business, Big Tech, and all the woke establishment types who enjoy protections and privileges they would deny others, despise Donald Trump, as he despises them.  

It is not just that he exposed their hypocrisies; he did it effectively. When Trump assailed the liberal media, he destroyed their credibility; Americans came to see the New York Times and CNN as the biased organizations they are. Trust in our mass media, which Gallup regularly surveys, has hit all-time lows, especially among Republicans.     

When Trump took aim at China’s malignant behavior, demanding fair trade terms and an end to their ongoing theft of intellectual property, he threatened Big Business, which is hugely vested in outsourcing U.S. jobs and accessing China’s emerging consumer class. 

Biden, whose inaugural theme is "America United," has permitted the haters to run riot.

In response, the U.S Chamber of Commerce, a longtime ally of the GOP, broke with tradition to endorse 30 vulnerable Democrats running for Congress, including 23 in the House. The Chamber was covering its bets; if Trump won reelection, at least the mouthpiece of Big Business could count on a Democrat-controlled House to protect its interests. 

This seismic political realignment has been dutifully ignored by Democrats and the liberal press, which continues to pretend that Scranton Joe represents the "little guy," even as his monster fund-raising from corporate America and Big Tech indicates otherwise.  

Meanwhile, Biden, whose inaugural theme is "America United," has permitted the haters to run riot. He could have called off the impeachment, he could have calmed the furies; he has not. 

For Biden, the vicious hatred of Donald Trump is useful; it is the glue holding the Democrat Party together.  

As Biden takes office, the progressive left, emboldened by the victories in Georgia that handed Democrats control of the Senate, will make impossible and unpopular demands that will split the party. They will insist on "Medicare-for-all" and advocate climate policies like a ban on fracking that will cost jobs and hobble our growth. They will push, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., vowed, to "change the world."   

Had the GOP maintained control of the Senate, Biden would not have had to confront the Left. Now, with Democrats in charge of all three branches of the government, he has no choice. 

He may not be up to the challenge. So far, Biden, master of platitudes, has avoided declaring himself on hard issues, like packing the court or banning fracking.   

He did not even take a stand on impeaching Trump, ceding that ground to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The Senate trial is scheduled to begin one hour after his inauguration, overshadowing his triumph and possibly derailing his first weeks in office.    

If Biden allows the bloodlust to continue, he will confirm critics’ expectations that he is a weak and ineffectual leader.  

Democrats have won. They are in charge and their actions in the next several months will decide how long they hold onto political power. Smearing and canceling Trump and his supporters may be satisfying in the short run, but it will not serve them well in 2022, when their slim House majority will be at peril.  

Poor turnout from Republicans cost the GOP the November election and two Senate seats in Georgia; nothing pumps up voter participation, Democrats have shown, like a sense of grievance. 

Biden has a big agenda, including a $1.9 trillion relief measure that Democrats have promised the American people. Sitting on the $1,400 handouts included in that proposal so the Senate can mull Trump’s responsibility for the assault on the Capitol will not go well. 

The president-elect should demand a cease-fire, beg his friends in the media to tone down hostilities, call an end to the impeachment process and perhaps even pardon President Trump, preventing any future prosecutions of the president for actions taken while he was in office. Such conciliatory gestures might actually help the nation heal.  

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President Trump is a beaten man, his reputation in tatters. It is remarkable that Democrats will undermine their own president-elect by pursuing a Senate trial, which will serve only to prevent Trump from running again. 

Maybe it isn’t that Democrats hate Trump. Maybe they fear him, still. 

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